Home Is the Place

  “What?!”

  “You heard me. That’s the end of the discussion. Go to your room until dinnertime.”

  Georgia marched into her room and slammed the door behind her. “It was just a mistake!” she shouted. “It was a misunderstanding. Just because I’m the responsible one, I’m the one who gets punished! You expect more from me. You never punish Richard, but you punish me all the time. I’m the one who gets the good grades, I’m the one who cleans my room and does my chores and practices my guitar. I do everything right, and then when the littlest thing goes wrong, I get punished. It isn’t fair.” Georgia held her ear to her door and listened for sounds from the living room. When she heard only the clacking of the keys on her mother’s laptop, she shouted again, “It isn’t fair!”

  Georgia rolled over in the unfamiliar bed in the unfamiliar room. The first thing she saw was her mother sleeping in a matching bed beside her. She tiptoed to the window, quietly raised the venetian blind, and blinked in the sunlight. Below her was the world of West 73rd Street in Manhattan. She knew that if she could crane her head far enough to the right she’d be able to see West End Avenue. Georgia peeked at her watch. Seven thirty. Seven thirty on a Saturday morning and already the city was busy. Taxis glided by. A man hurried along walking three tiny white dogs on leashes that glittered. Each dog carried a toy in its mouth, and the man carried a brown paper bag in his free hand. A woman pushed a stroller with two screaming children in it. Even from the fourth floor Georgia could hear their shrieks. The woman checked her cell phone and ignored the noise.

  Georgia turned from the window and crept back to her bed. She lay there, smiling, recalling the events — they still seemed surreal to her — that had brought her to Nana Dana’s apartment for a weekend in Manhattan, and what she hoped was the beginning of her professional music career.

  Her adventure had begun just over a month earlier when, at the end of band practice at Barnegat Point Elementary one afternoon, Mr. Elden had crooked his finger at Georgia and said, “Could you stay for a few minutes, please? I need to talk to you about something.”

  Ava, who played keyboard in the band, had raised her eyebrows at Georgia and whispered ever so softly, “Woo-hoo.” All the students at BP Elementary thought Mr. Elden was cool, even though he was middle-aged — older than Georgia’s own parents — and his hair was turning gray.

  “Have you ever seen him perform?” Talia had asked Georgia one day. “He plays guitar in a band on weekends. Like in restaurants and clubs and stuff. He plays electric guitar. He looks like a TV star then, not like a teacher.” She had added rapturously, as most of the girls did when the subject of Mr. Elden came up, “He is SO AWESOME.”

  Georgia hadn’t seen him play except when he was giving lessons, but she agreed that he was awesome. Now, as he motioned to her to stay behind after class, Georgia flashed Ava a self-conscious smile and returned to her seat.

  “So,” said Mr. Elden, when the room had emptied. He perched on his desk in the cramped practice space. “I have an opportunity for you.”

  Georgia looked at him with interest. “An opportunity?”

  “I have a friend in the business —” He noticed the confusion on Georgia’s face and said, “The music business. He’s based in New York and he’s looking for a kid to perform in a piece to promote a music video.”

  “Yes?” said Georgia, willing herself not to get too excited.

  “I thought of you right away. You’re my most talented guitar student. You play way beyond your level, and you’re already creating your own style. Would you be interested in performing in the video? The piece will be very short, but it would be nice exposure for you.”

  Georgia could contain herself no longer. She jumped out of her chair. “Yes! Yes, I would love that! It would be so exciting!”

  Mr. Elden grinned. “Excellent. I hoped that would be your response. A few things, though. We’ll need to send Joe — he’s my friend — some footage of you playing your guitar. We’ll need to put together something that will show off your strengths and your range. Also, the piece is going to be shot in New York City, so you and I and one of your parents will have to travel there.”

  Georgia had begun babbling then — about her dream of becoming a professional guitar player, about Nana Dana and her apartment in Manhattan, and about how this opportunity was a dream come true. What she didn’t say was that she couldn’t imagine her mother okaying a trip to NYC with Mr. Elden.

  Mr. Elden put out a hand to slow her down. “Go home, talk to your parents, and then ask one of them to call me. We’ll take it from there.”

  At home that evening, Georgia had waited until her house was quiet and homework time was underway (although Richard, she knew, was under his covers with his Nintendo, not his math book).

  “Mom? Dad?” said Georgia, standing uncertainly in the living room where her parents were huddled over bank statements and record books. Her father was still the owner of A Doll’s House, since the store had picked up slightly — ever so slightly — by the end of the previous summer, but the holidays had been disastrous. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Sure. What’s up, Georgie Girl?” her father replied vaguely.

  “It’s sort of important.”

  Her parents put the papers away and gave Georgia their full attention. She sat across from them and reported everything that Mr. Elden had told her. She tried to sound serious and grown-up.

  Mr. Noble’s eyes had brightened and he’d taken his daughter’s hand and exclaimed, “Honey, that’s wonderful! This really is an opportunity. I’ll call Mr. Elden right away.”

  But Mrs. Noble had grown serious. She pursed her lips together, threw her husband a venomous look, and said, “Sorry, Georgia, but that’s out of the question.”

  “Mom, please, I really want to go. And Dad agreed that this is an opportunity.”

  “But a trip to New York? To be filmed by some music business person we don’t even know?”

  “We could stay at Nana Dana’s,” said Georgia. “We’ve done that before. We’d be safe there. And Nana Dana could spend the day with us. She wouldn’t let anything happen. We’d be safe. Please.”

  Her mom shook her head. “Out of the question.”

  But Georgia’s father got to his feet. “I’m sorry. Not this time.”

  Georgia and her mother both looked up at him in confusion.

  Mr. Noble turned to his wife. “You are not making this decision by yourself. You do not have the only say in the matter. There are three of us here, and we all get a vote. This is important to Georgia, and she’s being very mature about it. I vote that Georgia be allowed to take the opportunity. Georgia?”

  “I vote yes, too,” said Georgia, practically holding her breath.

  “Well, I vote no,” said her mother. “But I guess that doesn’t matter.”

  Georgia had thrown her arms around her father. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” she’d cried. “You know, I still might not get to go. I still have to send in a DVD, but thank you for saying I can try.”

  * * *

  Georgia had gotten to go, of course. It hadn’t been easy. Putting together a DVD that showed off all the skills Mr. Elden thought were important, as well as her technique and style, was far more complicated and time-consuming than Georgia had imagined it would be. She’d worked hard, though, both at home on her own and during her lessons with Mr. Elden. Within an hour of viewing the DVD, Mr. Elden’s friend had announced that he wanted Georgia for the video.

  And so the planning had begun. After much discussion among the adults, including Nana Dana in New York, it was decided that Georgia and her mother would go to Manhattan for a girls’ weekend with Nana Dana. The “shoot,” as Georgia had learned the filming of the video was called, would take place on a Saturday afternoon. Georgia, Mrs. Noble, and Mr. Elden would leave for New York on Friday. (“You mean she gets a day off school?” Richard had exclaimed, incensed.) They would return on Sunday.

  “Let’s jus
t hope we’re all in one piece,” Mrs. Noble said more than once.

  * * *

  Now it was Saturday morning, the day of the shoot. Georgia glanced at her mother, who was still asleep, crept into the hallway of Nana Dana’s apartment, and tiptoed into the living room.

  “Hi, pumpkin,” said Nana Dana. She was sitting on the couch with a cup of coffee, which she set down. She opened her arms and Georgia settled into them.

  “I saw a man walking three dogs on sparkle leashes,” Georgia said into her grandmother’s shoulder. Then she added, “Mom is still asleep.”

  Nana Dana held Georgia at arm’s length. “So? Are you excited?”

  Georgia nodded. “About the video and also just about being here.”

  “In New York?”

  “In New York with you.”

  Nana Dana smiled. “When your mother was little she used to love visiting New York.”

  Georgia widened her eyes. “Really? She did?” She couldn’t imagine her mother loving trips to the big bad city.

  “Really and truly. She and her father and I would come here for weekends to visit my aunt Adele and your mother would stay with Adele in her apartment. We would go to shows and out to dinner and walk all over the city.”

  “I wish I lived closer to you,” said Georgia, “so we could do things like that.”

  “Me, too, pumpkin.” Nana Dana drew Georgia in for another hug.

  * * *

  At exactly noon, Georgia, her mother, and Nana Dana met Mr. Elden at the entrance to Central Park. With Mr. Elden was a tall man wearing jeans and a leather jacket. The eyes behind his thick black glasses looked stern, but when Mr. Elden said, “Joe, this is Georgia, our star guitar player,” Joe smiled warmly.

  “Let’s get to work,” he said.

  With Joe were two men lugging cameras, microphones, and all sorts of equipment stored in heavy black cases that they toted much more cheerfully than Georgia would have.

  “First,” Joe said to Georgia, “we want to shoot you” (“Shoot me?!” Georgia couldn’t help thinking) “walking through the park playing your guitar.”

  Georgia hadn’t expected this. She was used to sitting and playing, or occasionally standing and playing. But she gamely slung her guitar strap over her shoulder and, following Joe’s directions, began walking along a path in the park, playing “Yesterday” by the Beatles. She was acutely aware of the stares of passersby. It was a chilly, bright Saturday, and even though the weather couldn’t be described as springlike, the park was a lively place. Vendors sold hot pretzels and sodas. Children flew along the paths on Rollerblades and scooters, their nervous parents running after them. A karate class was in progress on the lawn. But as Georgia strummed her way through the park — surrounded by Joe and his crew, Mr. Elden, her mother, and Nana Dana — everyone stopped to watch her. She tried to smile at them as she played. She had a feeling she was grimacing instead, but when she glanced self-consciously at Joe, he simply motioned to her to keep going.

  After forty-five minutes of walking and playing, Joe finally said, “Okay, that’s good! Now we’re going to move on to Times Square.”

  Georgia turned to her mother, astounded, and whispered, “I thought we were done!”

  They were far from done. “We need lots of footage,” Joe explained.

  “How long is the video going to be?” asked Georgia.

  “Five minutes.”

  “Five minutes?!”

  Joe laughed. “Welcome to show business. You can shoot for hours just to get five minutes of screen time.”

  After playing her guitar in the middle of Times Square with what felt like ten million people staring at her, Joe wanted Georgia to play on a street corner with Madison Square Garden behind her, and then strolling through Grand Central Station.

  When at last they emerged from the train station, darkness had fallen. Joe turned to Georgia, who felt as if she could fall asleep right there on the sidewalk in the middle of Manhattan, and said, “Georgia, you were wonderful. We’ll get you a copy of the video as soon as it’s finished.”

  Georgia said good-bye to Mr. Elden then, and she and her mother and Nana Dana rode back uptown in a cab, Georgia half-asleep. But she woke up fully when her mother put her arm around her shoulder and whispered, “Honey, you were amazing. I’m proud of you.”

  Nana Dana added, “You really have to come to the city more often. Both of you.”

  Dana Goldberg had three grandchildren, but she still couldn’t get used to being a nana. Or to being called Nana Dana. Her only child, her daughter Francie, had called her Dana, never Mom, yet somehow Dana was now Nana. She didn’t feel like a grandmother. She had turned fifty-seven on her last birthday, an age that, when she was six, had seemed positively ancient. But now, well, Dana had one friend her age whose son had just graduated from high school. He was only eighteen. So fifty-seven wasn’t terribly old, was it?

  Dana looked around the small art studio at the back of her apartment. It was nowhere near the size of the studio she used to have when she and Matthew and Francie had lived in the house on Vandeventer Avenue in Princeton. But she no longer needed so much space. She illustrated fewer books and took on less work these days (her choice). She was tired of deadlines and of getting up at 5:00 a.m. Not that she couldn’t handle those things. She just chose not to.

  “I’m also not going to work on Sundays anymore,” she said aloud. She closed the door to the studio, walked down the hall to the kitchen, made a cup of coffee, and carried it to the living room. She sat in the armchair, the somewhat raggedy one that had made its way from Vandeventer to the smaller house in Princeton after her divorce from Matthew, and finally to this apartment in New York, where Dana hoped to live until she died. After a childhood spent moving around with her restless mother, Dana did not intend to move ever again.

  She was reaching for the Sunday New York Times and considering cranking up the air conditioner when her phone rang. Dana reached for it and checked the caller ID. Maine, her daughter Francie’s number.

  “Hi, honey!” Dana said brightly, a greeting that would be appropriate for any member of the Noble family.

  “Nana Dana! Guess what!” It was Georgia’s excited voice.

  “What?”

  “I just the saw the video! The one we shot in New York. Mr. Elden — remember him? — emailed me a copy. He said I’ll have actual DVDs soon, so I’ll send you one. You can see it on your DVD player, since I know you don’t really understand your computer. I mean, not that you’re … It’s just that you’re sort of old-fashioned…. I mean …”

  Dana laughed. “That’s okay. I am old-fashioned. You know me and email. I can’t wait to have the DVD.”

  “Nana Dana, this is so exciting! I look professional. Although … I’m not the only kid in the video. I guess they filmed other kids some other time and then put the whole thing together. But anyway, it’s really cool.”

  “Honey, that’s wonderful. You’re a star.”

  “Yeah. Well, a star who’s grounded.”

  “What?”

  “Mom grounded me yesterday. It was so unfair!”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Georgia sighed loudly. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “But what happened?”

  Another sigh. “You know my friends Talia and Ava?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, their mother said they could ride their bikes to Barnegat Point by themselves. No adult. They asked me to go with them, but Mom said no, and I said Talia and Ava had permission, and Mom said, ‘Talia and Ava aren’t my daughters,’ and I said, ‘I’m three months older than Talia and five months older than Ava,’ and Mom said something about everyone jumping off a cliff, and then I went to my room and slammed the door and Mom grounded me. Even though Richard is just one year older than me and he’s allowed to ride to Barnegat Point without an adult.”

  Dana closed her eyes briefly. At last she said, “I’m sorry, honey. It’s no fun being grounded during summer v
acation. At least you have your guitar.”

  “Yeah. You want to hear the song I’m writing? It starts, ‘Why did you give birth to me / just to torture me?’ Only I don’t know what rhymes with ‘torture me’ so I’m a little stuck.” Georgia paused. “Did you know there’s no word that rhymes with orange?”

  Dana settled back into the armchair, smiling. Mothers and daughters were the same in every generation, she supposed. The mothers were unfair and the daughters rebelled. Dana had rebelled against her own mother, and slowly she and Abby had grown apart. Even after Dana had grown up, even after she had become a mother and then a grandmother, she and Abby had maintained a wary distance.

  I should call her, Dana thought, as she listened to Georgia. I should call my mother and apologize.

  The list of things for which she should apologize was long. Very long. Going all the way back to the night on the Staten Island Ferry when Dana’s father, after an evening involving way too much drinking, had tried to capture his hat as the wind plucked it from his head and sent it sailing out over the bay. He had lunged for it, and Dana had lunged for him. But her father hadn’t been able to rescue his hat, and Dana hadn’t been able to rescue her father.

  She hadn’t blamed him, though. Instead she had blamed her mother, who had been throwing up in the ferry’s restroom. If her mother had been sober, she would have been at Dana’s side and surely the two of them could have pulled her father back. That was what Dana had thought on that unforgettable night, and for weeks afterward. Her mother, who had nagged her husband endlessly about his drinking, had been drunk herself the one time he most needed her.

  Then Abby had revealed to Dana and her brother and sister that she was pregnant. Another baby was on the way.

  Pregnant.

  Abby hadn’t been drunk the night of the accident. She’d been ill, with round-the-clock morning sickness.

  And I blamed her, Dana thought. For weeks I blamed her for something unthinkable.

  She should have asked her mother why she was sick, but instead she had silently assumed the worst.